Through Muriel Ressiguier, MP for the 2nd constituency of Hérault., February 01, 2022
Ms. Muriel Ressiguier alerts the Minister of Culture to the preservation of the press distribution sector.
France Messagerie was born on July 1, 2020 following the placement in receivership in May 2020 of Presstalis, which nevertheless provided 75% of the distribution. The press distribution sector has been in great difficulty for several years. Indeed, despite an increase in the number of readers, the paper press saw its number of sales drop, in favor of the digital version. Thus, between 2017 and 2018 it fell by 5.9% when digital jumped by 25.9%. According to a study conducted by the Alliance for Press and Media Figures, 83% of French people say they read at least one digital press brand. The period of confinement in 2020 led to a sharp drop in sales and advertising revenue from the print media, which had a significant economic impact on the sector.
Today France Messagerie distributes 100% of the national dailies, about 25% of the magazine press and almost all the encyclopedias and non-press. France Messagerie has also announced profits above forecasts of 5 million euros for the year 2021 despite the continued structural decline of 5% to 10% in press volumes processed. But the unions denounce half of the resources coming from direct state subsidies. The Syndicate of the Association of Press Publishers calls on the equalization which organizes the draining of 8 million euros from the receipts of the publishers of Messageries Lyonnaises de Presse to finance France Messagerie which is added to the 17 million euros in subsidies and the 2.25% levied on the High Amount Sale since 2018 to “save” Presstalis. In short, the positive assessment announced by Sandro Martin, managing director of France Messagerie is not so positive.
In addition, out of 900 employees at Presstalis, France Messagerie only had 244 at the end of 2021 and lost its regional branches. The former managing director of France Messagerie, Cédric Dugardin, declared on November 16, 2020: “We finally liquidated all of level 2, that of the regional depositaries, which had 512 people. On level 1, the restructuring affected 50% of the workforce at headquarters and 30% in Bobigny, in the daily newspaper processing centre. We are therefore on a social plan of approximately 650 people out of a total of 920 employees. It was a real trauma internally.”
More broadly, the logics that guide France Messagerie challenge us. Sandro Martin declared on October 8, 2021 “Our objective is to offer competitive prices combined with a good quality of service in order to convince magazine publishers to return to France Messagerie. We want to regain market share”. However, the press sector is not a commercial sector like the others and must be preserved from competition in the name of our democracy and media pluralism. The program of the National Council of Resistance, adopted in 1944 under the name “Happy Days” pleaded for “full freedom of thought, conscience and expression, freedom of the press, its honor and its independence in regard to the State, financial powers and foreign influences, freedom of association, assembly and demonstration”. The press and distributors must not respond to market logic as provided for by the Bichet law.
In response to the difficulties of the distribution sector, in 2013 Mrs Buffet tabled a bill aimed at the recovery of the press sector and its distribution, in the service of pluralism and the general interest, in which she already proposed the constitution of a single cooperative. The book workers of the former Société d’Agences et de Diffusion (former subsidiary of Presstalis) created the Cooperative de Presse et de Messagerie Méditerranéenne in the format of a Cooperative Society of Collective Interest, allowing the participation of employees in the capital but also local authorities and various players.
Madam Minister, are you going to question the commercial logic of the distribution sector, introduced in 2019 by the law on the Modernization of press distribution, which organizes the opening of the market and competition? What do you think of the proposal which aims to reallocate aid for the distribution and circulation of the press in the service of the general interest by creating a tax on online advertising in the service of financing the pluralist press and citizen?
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